A Prisoner Who Filed A Handwritten Brief Just Won His Supreme Court Battle

Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion.Joeff Davis via Flickr The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision today that will let a prisoner sue the government because a prison guard allegedly forced him to perform oral sex.

The case is unusual because that prisoner, Kim Millbrook, filed his petition to the Supreme Court in longhand and didn't have a lawyer in the lower court. He'd also been warned by an appeals court about filing "frivolous papers," McClatchy Newspapers had previously reported.

Millbrook had tried to sue the federal government over his alleged rape by a corrections officer, but a federal appeals court shot his case down. That court said the Federal Tort Claims Act made the federal government immune from such claims.

But a unanimous Supreme Court said Wednesday that the FTCA's immunity for the federal government does not apply to Millbrook's allegations of rape, and that Millbrook's suit can go forward.

Congress amended the FTCA in 1974 to specify that it doesn't immunize the federal government from claims tied to the wrongful conduct of corrections' officers, the high court pointed out.

Millbrook claims that one officer held him in a choke while he was forced to perform oral sex on another officer. A third officer allegedly stood watch, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

This ruling doesn't mean that he wins this suit against the government — just that he's free to sue the federal government.

Given the fact that he had no lawyer, his victory is pretty huge. The case could be also be big for prisoners and guards alike, McClatchy pointed out after the Supreme Court granted Millbrook's petition.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority.

In a separate case in June, a judge on Chicago's federal appeals court warned Millbrook that "continuing to file frivolous papers may result in sanctions," according to McClatchy.